


Spoils

by inelegantly (Lir)



Category: The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Adventure, Canon Compliant, Celebrations, Established Relationship, Multi, Post-Canon, Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the latest of so many adventures together, Chel, Tulio, and Miguel take a moment to catch their collective breath and revel in the treasure that they've won — and to appreciate the people who will stick with them through every close call they've had and anything new and dangerous thrown at them in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoils

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aroceu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroceu/gifts).



> This is one of my favorite movies, too, and I hope I've done justice to the characters! I really love the fondness they're seen to have for each other in the very last scene of the movie and that's what I hoped to capture in fic.

* * *

They stumble into the clearing, breathless after their run and after having rushed through an entire gauntlet of traps. Miguel dumps himself on his behind the moment the narrow forest path they were flying down opens up into someplace wide enough to sit; Tulio at least has the grace to bend himself over a rock, panting raggedly but with a grin beginning to rise again to his face at the realization that they've _done_ it.

Chel, meanwhile, gives a victorious shout and punches the air with her fist, the fingers of which are clasped around the heavy necklace stolen out of a particular hidden, abandoned temple they'd found at last. 

"Careful," Tulio says, his grin pulling into a momentary frown as he reaches out to try and snatch the necklace from Chel's hand. "Don't break it, after all the trouble we went through getting it." 

"I'm not," Chel insists, pulling her hand back out of Tulio's reach. "Live in the moment a little. Be happy. We did something amazing here." 

She holds the necklace out before him, fingers of both hands hooked around the chain to hold it for best display, as if a proper sight of the treasure they'd acquired might put Tulio again at ease. His expression momentarily softens, soppy with admiration for the lovely bauble newly come into their possession, before his hand darts out again and Chel has to pull the necklace away from his grasping hands. 

On the ground at their feet, Miguel is still leaned back on his palms and wheezing after their run, though the little gasps he's been making sound suspiciously as if they've transformed into laughter. Chel darts around him, placing his body in between Tulio and herself just to make it harder for him to grab the necklace away from her. 

"I'm the lady," she says. "Don't you think this kind of thing is more suiting to me? Stop trying to grab it, you're the one who's gonna break it." 

Tulio stops, shooting her a reproachful look before straightening, smoothing down the front of his shirt with a put-upon air of dignity. Chel snorts through her nose at his transparent posturing. 

"Here," she says, shoving it into his hands. She waits only long enough for his eyes to go bright with covetousness and greed before she adds, "Put it on me." 

His face falls the moment after, and then it's Chel and Miguel both who are laughing. 

"Tulio!" Miguel crows from the ground. "Your face!" 

"Don't," Tulio says, stabbing a finger in his direction with the hand not wrapped around the necklace chain. 

Tulio takes a moment to hold the necklace up before his face, letting the light filtering through the canopy of the trees fall onto the gold and the gems so they wink in bright splendor. He sighs softly with appreciative regret, before using his other hand to beckon towards Chel.

"Come here, my lady," he says, sweeping that hand out in a tiny flourish that's almost a bow. "Your treasure awaits." 

Miguel chuckles at the performance as Chel laughs high and delightedly, hopping toward Tulio in two quick steps and spinning on her heel to present her back. Her hands come up, lifting the heavy curtain of her hair out of the way so that Tulio can get at her neck. 

Tulio rolls his eyes behind her head (Miguel covers his mouth to hide a grin when he sees) but his expression is again softening into a smile while he unclasps the necklace to fasten it around Chel's throat. His fingers are light, careful with all the delicate links of gold and the dangling gemstones, draping the thing against Chel's breast before closing the clasp with swift, sure precision. 

Chel's hand comes up to run over the constellation of gold and gems hanging from her throat, smoothing the few stray stones not perfectly aligned with the rest back into proper order. She's smiling as she does it, gently, but no less smug for all that there's a fond, unfocused look in her eyes. 

"I think it suits me," she says, immediately snapping out of her moment of reverence and falling right back into her usual cocky air. "It suits me, don't it?" 

"Very much so," Miguel says, quick to chime in with appreciation for their prize. 

"Like a queen," Tulio adds, leaning forward into the first half of a bow (and so his face draws closer to the gold at her neck, Chel doesn't miss that for a moment). 

"I thought so," she says, reaching out to pat each of them on opposing cheeks. "Worth it, wasn't it, boys?" 

Tulio sighs, like he isn't so sure, but Chel knows him well enough by then to recognize a performance when she sees one. Miguel laughs, breathless again, shaking his head in wonder as the reality of what they'd done seems to finally hit him. 

"We really did it," he says. "And we didn't die!" 

"Course we didn't," Chel says. "Do I look like I wanna become a pincushion at the bottom of a pit full of spikes? Uh-uh, there's no way I was letting any of those traps get the better of me." 

"That's easy for you to say," Tulio shoots back. "You're not the one who almost got bumped into the pit of spikes, when you were only protecting your own behind." 

"We pulled you out," Chel says, waving one hand dismissively like it isn't a big deal. 

"After knocking me over the edge!" Tulio exclaims. "With your hip! Like you were playing ball!" 

"I think what Chel is trying to say," Miguel begins, cutting delicately into their argument, "is that she's sorry, that she almost pushed you into the spikes." He pauses. "And we did, you know. We did pull you out. That is something that we did." 

Tulio brings his hand up, slapping it over his face and dragging it down past his eyes in exasperation. Miguel beams guilelessly at him as Chel softly chuckles, reaching one hand out to run it through Tulio's hair where there's a newly-shorn gouge from one of the arrows another trap had sent whizzing past them. 

"You know neither of us is ever gonna leave you behind," she says. "So hey. Buck up. There ain't nothing here worth complaining about." 

Behind her, Miguel is nodding his head enthusiastically in agreement with her words. Tulio nearly slaps his hand over his face again, but makes himself leave it at his side, as the indignation drains once again from his face. As much as he doesn't want to be, he finds himself smiling. 

"You should make it up to me," he says, the corner of his mouth lifting in a more conspiratorial way. "I'm the one who almost impaled himself for the treasure _you're_ wearing. I deserve a little recompense." 

"Oh, do you?" Chel asks. 

But she's smiling too, just as sly and with laughter lurking in her eyes, before she leans forward and pecks him on the cheek. Hovering close, she asks, "And just how do you want things made up to you?" 

She kisses him again, on the mouth this time, slow and showy and entirely pleased with herself. 

"Not in front of the, you know," Tulio stage-whispers when she pulls back, nodding down at Miguel.

Miguel is staring openly up at both of them, a wide smile across his face as he props it in his hands, appearing utterly content to watch the performance. "Go on, go on, don't mind me." 

"Children have to grow up someday," Chel jokes, pulling Tulio in for another kiss, this time with her tongue thrust in his mouth. "And come on, look at that face." She drops down next to Miguel, sliding her arm around his neck and pulling at his cheek with the fingers of one hand. "Doesn't this look like the face of someone who deserves a little entertainment?" 

"Oh, gods," Tulio mutters. 

But he sounds just amused enough underneath his exasperation that Chel doesn't leave up, pressing her face in against Miguel's and nuzzling against his cheek. "Tulio thinks he's such a big man," she stage-whispers to him. "Getting shot at and almost stabbed and only being a little bit mad about it. But you know he needs to lighten up, don't you, Miguel?" 

"Miguel," Tulio says, a warning note in his voice.

But Chel kisses his cheek and Miguel utterly ignores Tulio's protest, mind blissfully empty of any rational voice that might warn him off of going along with Chel's game. She slides herself onto his lap, sitting with her back toward his chest but curled around just enough that she can tilt her head to kiss his other cheek, then to kiss him on the mouth as well, smooth and slow. 

She glances up at Tulio afterward, every line in her expression a dare. 

"Tulio thinks he doesn't want to celebrate with us, and that everything we do should be all about him," Chel says, no longer even attempting the whisper that would make it something other than a taunt thrown in his face. "But he's the one who's missing out, isn't he, Miguel?" 

"Very much so," Miguel says, nodding his head smartly in agreement.

Chel folds her legs up, perched on Miguel's lap like it's her throne, and crooks one little finger up at Tulio. "We did something amazing," she reminds him. "Now get down here and do something about it." 

He rolls his eyes in put-on aggravation, but lasts no more than a minute before he's begrudgingly sinking down to kneel beside them on the grass. Chel twines her arm around Miguel's neck, the gold and gems of their spoils still glistening against her breast, and beckons Tulio in. When he goes to kiss her, she delicately pulls away.

"Uh-uh," she says. "I'm not the big, strong man who pulled you out of that pit." 

She drawls "big" and "strong" with such casual sarcasm that for a moment Tulio is caught on that, distracted from what it is she's pushing him to do. But then it sinks in, and he shrugs, leaning past Chel to place his face directly in front of Miguel's.

"Thank you for pulling me out of the pit," he says, dutifully and like he doesn't quite mean it. 

"You're welcome," Miguel says brightly, ignoring all evidence that Tulio is anything other than sincere.

And then Tulio kisses him, firm on his still-smiling mouth and to the accompanying sound of Chel's "mmm-MMM" hum of approval, before she curls her arm around his neck as well and sneaks her fingers up to twine into the hair at the back of his neck.

"That's the kinda celebration I like to see," she says. 

Tulio doesn't complain, as she hitches one leg up over his hip and presses her back up against Miguel's chest, feeling every bit the victorious queen when she's bedecked in jewels and sandwiched between the handsome men who will help steal them for her. 

"Do you mind?" Tulio jokes, in between pressing firm kisses to Miguel's mouth.

Chel laughs and shakes her head, saying, "Uh-uh, it ain't like I mind at all."

* * *


End file.
